


We Stood Tall Together

by returntosaturn



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Battle, F/M, Healing, Prompt Fill?, Tina M.I.A., War, lost Newt, tumblr ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-10 00:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11679945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: He curses himself for allowing his stubborn, unbridled empathy to impede even his grief, the only element that still remains within his grasp.





	We Stood Tall Together

Theseus is the one that brings it to his bedside. His bruised hand shakes visibly when he reaches for it, the cold of the pendant a sharp prick against the constant numbness that’s settled over his skin since they brought him here. Since they'd scraped their wounded from the rocks surrounding Nurmengard, brought them into the stark whiteness of a hospital wing that is no less a battlefield. 

He studies the surface of the abandoned pendant, tracing scuffs and scratches, divots in the metal as if he might see something that indicates it does not belong to her. That Theseus is mistaken. That it belongs to someone else. But there's nothing. The one who has mapped its surface, who has clasped the thing in her palm, toyed the chain through her fingers when she read, when she was uncertain, when she was lost to thought, is not here. Not here to ask about the length of this scratch or that. Not here to question about the weak clasp that holds the halves together. 

His brother presses a hand to his shoulder, squeezes tight, and then is gone, letting the papery blue curtain slip back into place as he goes. 

He doesn't cry. Not right off. He lays there, against the thin cot, listening to the groans and coughs and shouts sounded around him, outside of this little cocoon they must've given him out of reverence’s sake. His bandages itch and scratch around his forehead, his elbow where they've wrapped it in a makeshift sling.

He doesn't flinch when he curls onto his side, every muscle tensing in protest, the locket clutched to his chest, an idle finger tracing over the latch.

-

The hospital doesn't quiet even as the hour goes late and then early. 

There are too many. Too many voices and calls for help that go unanswered by the overworked staff.

Somewhere in the hours just before dawn, a man’s voice cries out soft, just a whimper, from some far corner of the room in another bay. “Nora? Has anyone seen her? I don't know where she's gone, my Nora…”

Newt, awake, feels his throat go tight. 

There is nothing to be done for either of them, himself and this man. No spell to relieve the weight in his chest. No healer or brother that can sit and provide a reprieve, fill the gap.

He curses himself for allowing his stubborn, unbridled empathy to impede even his grief, the only element that still remains within his grasp.

Tears cling at his lashes before disappearing into the rough cotton of the flat pillow beneath his head.

The sky is dove grey, peeking over the edge of the curtain when he finally finds sleep.

-

“You must eat,” Theseus says.

He’d rather not. He does not say this. Instead, he takes his time at siphoning a carrot from the soup a healer has brought. 

Under Theseus’s watchful eye, he ladles out a tiny sliver of boiled chicken and chews it ruefully.

Theseus shifts the morning’s newspaper from where its clamped under his arm to the inner pocket of his longocat.

-

He has never seen what’s inside the locket, never asked her to share what she kept so close to her heart.

It feels intrusive when he flicks open the latch. It’s loose from wear, though he can’t recall ever having seen her open it.

He knows that though it belonged to a certainly capable witch, it does not contain a charm. It is much simpler than that.  _ She  _ was much simpler, efficient and methodical in her magic.

On the left face, there’s a portrait of Queenie as a young girl, hair curlier than ever, a front tooth missing from her sweet smile.

On the right, a photograph of a man and wife, their features faded with the age of the print. He can make out the man’s straight brows, a thick moustache, familiar eyes. The woman bears the dimples she’d passed to both her daughters, fair hair just visible beneath her wedding veil.

He stares at the strangers for a long while, reading details into the photograph that have worn away with time. 

He doesn’t know exactly what he hopes he might find in their faces.

-

There's a mix of French and English healers here. The English ladies are volunteers, come to support the small hospital in its influx of wounded patients post battle.

The same one who'd brought his soup comes to unwrap the bandages from his head on what he thinks is the third day. He hasn't kept track.

A fleshy pink wound is revealed, with fresh stitches lacing through his brow and into his hairline.

He touches a finger to it only to have his hand swatted away and a warm cup of tea shoved at him. She demands in deliberate, rapid-fire French that he get some fresh air in the courtyard.

He nods and gives his quiet thanks.

Theseus has gone by Floo to his office at the Ministry to deal with administrative aftermath, so Newt sits alone in the crisp morning.

There are no thoughts to be had, no introspection to dig at. 

He finds after a moment or two that he’s just...there. An hour may have passed and he wouldn’t know otherwise. 

He tries at focusing, tries at thinking about something other than brown eyes, a numinous smile.

He tries to tally species of birds as they flit through the trees, pause at the flowers, chirp to one another while about their morning tasks.

He loses interest.

When he returns with an unemptied cup of cold tea, the ward is the same. Healers rushing about, patients chatting to one another. He hears two gentlemen recounting the high points of the battle, how Albus Dumbledore himself had driven the madman back, back into his own prison.

Newt feels a new tickle in his throat.

The last he remembers of Dumbledore is the weary, detached look in his eyes before he drew his wand and whispered away in a flurry of blue robes.

He makes back for his bed, letting the dull roar of the atmosphere settle into his bones.

But something catches his eye at the edge of a cot just outside his own ward. The curtain has been neglected, hanging half open. A healer darts behind it, leaving it to catch the wake of her hurry.

It's the color he sees first.

A touch of brown, a tattered cardigan. A voice. 

A dirtied, blood-streaked hand reaches to smooth wiry hair while healers swarm, asking questions and ticking off charts.

He steps closer.

His fingers brush the thin, papery blue.

A gasp.

-

She’s whole. And after a bath, she’s human, not the grim figure she posed before.

Her knuckles are wrapped, a spot on her cheek bandaged. Her shoulder is set, and wrapped into a sling so that they both bear similar injuries. He smiles thinly and says that they make a fine pair.

She is quiet, lips drawn into a solemn bow, but her eyes are on him. She watches him while he sets aside the bowl of broth a healer insisted she drink, and settles next to her on the small width of her cot. 

He presses a kiss to her clean hair.

As if he’s endowing her, knighting her, he slips the chain over her head, around her neck, and with his free hand, sees the pendant safely home to its place just over her ribs.

**Author's Note:**

> [allscissorsallpaper](http://allscissorsallpaper.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
